[1stgenbird]

My 65 GTO was built at the Pontiac, MI plant and according to the PHS docs, it was sent to zone 19 and dealer 23, which is in MS.

As there was an Atlanta plant building GTOs at the time, was it common to ship cars from distant plants when there were others closer to the dealer?

I have PHS docs for other Pontiacs I have owned that state the dealer's name. This one does not as the area on the form is blank and on another page has "1965 Special Equipment" handwritten in the dealer name and address area.

[Tom Vaught]

It was common for a customer to want certain options on a GTO and not be willing to wait for a car to be built and delivered by the normal system.

So the Dealer would get on the phone with the factory sales people and see if a vehicle he wanted was sitting in another Dealers inventory somewhere and was not sold yet.
Then at times they would make a 'trade" I have been involved in making "trades" with other dealers at my Uncle's Pontiac
Dealership (when he was alive). He was a Pontiac Dealer for 67 years.

So the "1965 Special Equipment" handwritten in the Dealer name and address area to me would mean the customer ordered the vehicle then possibly bailed on it so the Dealer already had the car in the Atlanta area. Even though the Atlanta Plant was "right down the road". Just one possibility. Idea was to sell the car and get it off the lot.

Tom V.

[MikeNoun]

I believe the Special Equipment form you're referring to is simply the standard photocopied form that PHS provides. It has "1965 Special Equipment" handwritten in the dealer name are at the top, and the form has the right side cut off.

Many people have asked why a dealer, perhaps located in Texas, would order a 1969 GTO and the car would be built in Fremont California, not Arlington Texas. It seems like that would save a lot of $$$ on the Destination Charge, which was always passed on to the customer. However, Destination Charges were based on the distance from the Pontiac HOME plant to the city/state of the dealer, so it didn't matter which plant built the car.

If you lived in Michigan and ordered a GTO that was built at the Pontiac home plant, your Destination Charge would be very cheap (sometimes under $10).

If you lived in Sacramento CA and ordered a GTO that was built in Fremont CA plant, the Destination Charge is outrageous, typically over $150, because they based the Destination Charge on the distance from the mother plant in Pontiac MI.

Mike

[John V.]

In the '65 Model Year, big Pontiacs WERE built at the Doraville (near Atlanta) Final Assembly Plant.

But the A body Tempest was NOT built there.

The only Final Plants building the '65 Tempest were:

Pontiac, Mich, PMDs "home" Plant.
Fremont, Cal, a B-O-P controlled Plant that also built Chevys (including the Chevelle but also big Chevys I believe), Skylarks, and F-85s.
Kansas City, Missouri (there was also a big car Assembly Plant in Kansas City, KS
Baltimore, MD

KC and Baltimore were Chevrolet Motor Div. controlled Final Plants.

In '64 & '65, about 1/2 of ALL Pontiac including Tempest production occurred at the "home" Pontiac Plant.

The balance of Tempest Production was split amongst the other 3 Plants.

So your '65 GTO being built at the "home" Plant was statistically the most likely Assembly Plant where the Build Order would have been directed.

I'm not aware that the Zone and certainly not the Dealer had any say in which Plant where a given Order would be directed. That was a production scheduling task that surely was occurring at PMD Corp. in response to order demand and plant scheduling needs.

Most but not all Tempests produced for West Coast Dealers were produced at the Fremont Plant, but a Calif destined Tempest could be built at the Pontiac Plant and perhaps Balt and KC as well. Pontiac for sure had the ability to install the Cal emissions K24 plumbing for a Cal build.

Fremont built cars that were shipped back to a Midwest Dealer on occasion.

Mike, I remember reading about (as current events) when GM changed the way they calculated the Destination Charge. I don't remember when but I think it may have begun to change in the late '70s, at that point they equalized the Destination Charge so that Dealers close to the Pontiac Plant no longer enjoyed a competitive edge. And the Dealers in Calif were no longer screwed by getting charged based on the distance from the "home" Plant when the cars they were buying were being produced at a Calif Assembly Plant.

Maybe you know the history. But as I recall it, there may have been a lawsuit and they were forced to stop calculating freight based on distance from the home Plant. The solution was to charge the same based on the car model regardless of where it was built and where it shipped to. I think part of it involved a recognition that for example, Pontiac only assembled engines at the "home" Plant. So there was cost of shipping components to satellite Plants that didn't exist when the cars were built at the home Plant. Rather than try to break it down by Assembly Plant, the easiest thing was to assess a uniform Destination Charge only based on the car model.

Just because the Dealer was close to Fremont and the car was built there didn't necessarily mean the freight costs built into the price were less than if the car was built at Pontiac and shipped to him from there. Although I do think in relative terms when they went to the uniform Destination Charge, Calif buyers saw a relative decrease in cost while Midwest buyers saw a relative increase in cost.

That "Special Equipment" is as Mike says just a copy of a form that PHS includes generically with all '65 packets. It was scrawled on the blank form, has nothing to do with really anything, it just indicates that the form is the '65 All Series Special Equipment Order Form, listing options that were not considered regular production options as included on the regular individual Model Series Order Forms but could be ordered as Special Equipment as outlined on the secondary ASSE Order Form. "All Series" means the form could be used for a Bonneville or a Tempest or any other Model Series. Royal Pontiac included Special Equipment options like the Close Ratio 4 speed for many '65 GTO orders, this was the Form they used to supplement the regular Order to get the "good" stuff.

Your '65 record is a Billing History Card and the Dealer is only identified by the numeric coding.

You say Dealer Code 19-023 is in Mississippi? Zone 19 is the Memphis, Tenn Zone office, it covered Miss. But I'm wondering if you have identified the dealer with that code id?

[Keith Seymore]

So – the short answer is: the Final assembly location is determined not just by geography but also specific option content.

Also I've told the story before that when my pick up was built it was shipped 9 miles from the plant to the selling dealer ship and I still had to pay the $525 destination fee (even though I drove it off the end of the assembly line myself).

The fact that it was built in Flint was not intentional but just a happy coincidence.
K

[War eagle]

Owning a 66 Chevelle, I wondered why my car was sent to Phoenix from the Leeds plant KC. rather than the closer Fremont operation. I asked over at the Chevelle site and several AZ cars are indeed KC built. One owner theorized the emissions dedicated Fremont plant would not be building cars not intended for Ca. AZ would be in the KC district even though Fremont was closer.

[Chris65LeMans]

One theory is that the Fremont plant couldn't build enough to keep up with western U.S. demand.

[1stgenbird]

Originally Posted by John V.

In the '65 Model Year, big Pontiacs WERE built at the Doraville (near Atlanta) Final Assembly Plant.

But the A body Tempest was NOT built there.

The only Final Plants building the '65 Tempest were:

Pontiac, Mich, PMDs "home" Plant.
Fremont, Cal, a B-O-P controlled Plant that also built Chevys (including the Chevelle but also big Chevys I believe), Skylarks, and F-85s.
Kansas City, Missouri (there was also a big car Assembly Plant in Kansas City, KS
Baltimore, MD

KC and Baltimore were Chevrolet Motor Div. controlled Final Plants.

In '64 & '65, about 1/2 of ALL Pontiac including Tempest production occurred at the "home" Pontiac Plant.

The balance of Tempest Production was split amongst the other 3 Plants.

So your '65 GTO being built at the "home" Plant was statistically the most likely Assembly Plant where the Build Order would have been directed.

I'm not aware that the Zone and certainly not the Dealer had any say in which Plant where a given Order would be directed. That was a production scheduling task that surely was occurring at PMD Corp. in response to order demand and plant scheduling needs.

Most but not all Tempests produced for West Coast Dealers were produced at the Fremont Plant, but a Calif destined Tempest could be built at the Pontiac Plant and perhaps Balt and KC as well. Pontiac for sure had the ability to install the Cal emissions K24 plumbing for a Cal build.

Fremont built cars that were shipped back to a Midwest Dealer on occasion.

Mike, I remember reading about (as current events) when GM changed the way they calculated the Destination Charge. I don't remember when but I think it may have begun to change in the late '70s, at that point they equalized the Destination Charge so that Dealers close to the Pontiac Plant no longer enjoyed a competitive edge. And the Dealers in Calif were no longer screwed by getting charged based on the distance from the "home" Plant when the cars they were buying were being produced at a Calif Assembly Plant.

Maybe you know the history. But as I recall it, there may have been a lawsuit and they were forced to stop calculating freight based on distance from the home Plant. The solution was to charge the same based on the car model regardless of where it was built and where it shipped to. I think part of it involved a recognition that for example, Pontiac only assembled engines at the "home" Plant. So there was cost of shipping components to satellite Plants that didn't exist when the cars were built at the home Plant. Rather than try to break it down by Assembly Plant, the easiest thing was to assess a uniform Destination Charge only based on the car model.

Just because the Dealer was close to Fremont and the car was built there didn't necessarily mean the freight costs built into the price were less than if the car was built at Pontiac and shipped to him from there. Although I do think in relative terms when they went to the uniform Destination Charge, Calif buyers saw a relative decrease in cost while Midwest buyers saw a relative increase in cost.

That "Special Equipment" is as Mike says just a copy of a form that PHS includes generically with all '65 packets. It was scrawled on the blank form, has nothing to do with really anything, it just indicates that the form is the '65 All Series Special Equipment Order Form, listing options that were not considered regular production options as included on the regular individual Model Series Order Forms but could be ordered as Special Equipment as outlined on the secondary ASSE Order Form. "All Series" means the form could be used for a Bonneville or a Tempest or any other Model Series. Royal Pontiac included Special Equipment options like the Close Ratio 4 speed for many '65 GTO orders, this was the Form they used to supplement the regular Order to get the "good" stuff.

Your '65 record is a Billing History Card and the Dealer is only identified by the numeric coding.

You say Dealer Code 19-023 is in Mississippi? Zone 19 is the Memphis, Tenn Zone office, it covered Miss. But I'm wondering if you have identified the dealer with that code id?

When I ran the dealer zone and codes, I entered 19 as the zone and 23 as the dealer code. The result was zone 19 and dealer 237. Fisher Pontiac in Gulfport, MS. So I changed to dealer 023 and nothing showed up.

[John V.]

That's kinda why I asked, the public sites that list Pontiac Dealers by code do not identify your dealer unfortunately.

So there is no way for you to know that your dealer was from Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, or Louisiana, all states that were at least partly covered from the Memphis Zone.

Only thing certain, alphabetically, the Dealer was between Aycock Pontiac (19-019) and Benafield Motors (19-030) as PMD assigned Dealer Codes in alphabetical order with few exceptions.

There were hundreds of dealer outlets in every Zone so trying to identify the dealer by code if you do not know the address of the dealership is a daunting task.

Reportedly, PHS has a complete list that they are secretive about, they use their list to make reproduction Window Stickers, but the quality of their W.S. is suspect. Suggest you talk to Mike Noun, he has an extensive list of Dealer Codes too and his W.S. repros are awesome.

Keith, I'm not convinced option content entered into the decision in '64/'65. Each Plant was equally capable and did build cars with all options, including Special Equipment choices like the 3.90 axle. In fact, the only '64 GTO known to have been built with the very late release M21 close ratio Muncie was built at Fremont and shipped to a dealer in Texas. Even Special Paint color option builds have been found from various Plants, not just the "home" Plant.

Option content did affect the daily production scheduling, the in plant schedulers had to be sure that the option content was on-hand before they scheduled the final assembly. But if they were short on something, that just meant the build was delayed a bit as it was already committed to that Final Plant.

I can't speak to '66 and don't know much about Chevy, but I suspect it was the same for them.

Since Kansas City, MO was a Chevy controlled Plant, it is possible that Chevy would have shown a preference for keeping up the volume at this Plant rather than the B-O-P controlled Fremont Plant. But that is just a guess. Given the no. of Chevys and Chevelles being sold, they filled the build buckets at many Plants, even those that also built B-O-P models along with Chevys.

For '64/'65, as I mentioned, emissions was not a big driver, the Pontiac Plant could and did build cars with the K24 option destined for a Cal dealer. And Fremont built a LOT of '64/'65 Tempests that were shipped outside of Calif and did NOT get the K24 option.

Cal emissions got more complicated for '66 but I still doubt that other Plants were incapable of producing cars for Cal orders in '66.

Fremont may have been kept busy with western US orders but in '64/'65, there is plenty of evidence that they received orders to build cars well to the east.

I still contend the primary driver was a need to fill available production capacity among all the Plants.

I'm not aware of any Cal builds coming out of the Balt Plant (although there is evidence they were capable of installing the K24 option same as any other Plant), so geography probably played a role in the scheduling decision. But my evidence would show plenty of geography "overlap" among the (4) Plants building the Tempest in '64/'65.

[War eagle]

Originally Posted by John V.

I can't speak to '66 and don't know much about Chevy, but I suspect it was the same for them.

Since Kansas City, MO was a Chevy controlled Plant, it is possible that Chevy would have shown a preference for keeping up the volume at this Plant rather than the B-O-P controlled Fremont Plant. But that is just a guess. Given the no. of Chevys and Chevelles being sold, they filled the build buckets at many Plants, even those that also built B-O-P models along with Chevys.

For '64/'65, as I mentioned, emissions was not a big driver, the Pontiac Plant could and did build cars with the K24 option destined for a Cal dealer. And Fremont built a LOT of '64/'65 Tempests that were shipped outside of Calif and did NOT get the K24 option.

Cal emissions got more complicated for '66 but I still doubt that other Plants were incapable of producing cars for Cal orders in '66.

Fremont may have been kept busy with western US orders but in '64/'65, there is plenty of evidence that they received orders to build cars well to the east.

I still contend the primary driver was a need to fill available production capacity among all the Plants.

I'm not aware of any Cal builds coming out of the Balt Plant (although there is evidence they were capable of installing the K24 option same as any other Plant), so geography probably played a role in the scheduling decision. But my evidence would show plenty of geography "overlap" among the (4) Plants building the Tempest in '64/'65.

The K24 option I agree would not be improbable from all other plants and with a couple PHS statements we could easily confirm it. John do you have one with that info? It would shed light on Fremont's diversity or for that matter the satellite facilities. Anyone with a 64-66 PHS built with smog devices not from Fremont out there?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by John V.

Keith, I'm not convinced option content entered into the decision in '64/'65. Each Plant was equally capable and did build cars with all options, including Special Equipment choices like the 3.90 axle. In fact, the only '64 GTO known to have been built with the very late release M21 close ratio Muncie was built at Fremont and shipped to a dealer in Texas. Even Special Paint color option builds have been found from various Plants, not just the "home" Plant.

Agree - I was thinking about it more from a general perspective.

In the truck world things like dual rear wheels or cab style (regular, extended or crew) drive the order to different final assembly locations.

K